Earth Island News

International Marine Mammal Project

$40,000 for falsely labeled Dolphin Safe tuna

The International Marine Mammal Project (IMMP) is celebrating a major court case against smugglers bringing
Dolores tuna into the US from Mexico with a phony Amigo de Delfin
(Dolphin Friendly) stamp on the cans. In San Diego federal court,
Salvador Garcia Sandoval, owner of Mexican Trade Grocery of Chula
Vista, California, pleaded guilty to importing more than 1,600 cases of
dolphin-deadly tuna. He agreed to pay the US government $40,000 in back
duty payments and $1,975 to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries for administrative costs.

This
case will send a warning to all markets and grocers in the US, states
David Phillips, executive director of IMMP. Falsely labeled tuna hurts
dolphins, US consumers, and US tuna companies that have adopted
Dolphin Safe tuna fishing practices. American consumers deserve to
know whether the tuna they buy was caught by methods that harm dolphins
or not.

Take action: If you find tuna without a Dolphin Safe label or Dolores tuna with a phony Amigo del Delfin label, contact IMMP at 300 Broadway, Suite 28, San Francisco, CA 94133; (415) 788-3666 (voice); (415) 788-7324 (fax);marinemammal@earthisland.org. Include the name and address of the store. Better yet, send us a can in the mail.

IMMP, reacting to reports of illegal tuna showing up in US
supermarkets, conducted an investigation and documented that Dolores
tuna, canned in Mazatlan, was being sold as Dolphin Friendly in many
US stores. Dolores tuna is canned by PINSA, the largest cannery in
Mexico, which has a fleet of purse seine boats which chase and net
dolphins to catch the tuna, killing many dolphins in the process. More
than seven million dolphins have been killed in the tuna fishery since
the late 1950s when large purse seine nets were first introduced.

Earth
Island contacted investigators with NOAA Fisheries, who, in concert
with US Customs, caught a truckload of Dolores tuna at the border. The
load of tuna was traced to TBA Mexican Trade Grocery. Maximum penalty
for fraudulent importation of merchandise is five years in jail and a
$250,000 fine. IMMP continues to work to find dolphin-deadly tuna in US
markets and educate storeowners about the dangers of such tuna to
dolphins.  Mark J. Palmer

Euro moratorium on whale-killing sonars

On October 28, the European Parliament overwhelmingly approved a
resolution calling for a moratorium on the use of extremely loud sonars
that have been linked with whale deaths around the world. The
moratorium is voluntary, but puts the onus on European countries to
implement a moratorium while studies of the impacts and alternatives
are conducted.

IMMP and the Ocean Noise Coalition composed the original draft resolution, and the resolution was endorsed
by dozens of European and American environmental organizations. A
delegation with representatives from both sides of the Atlantic met
last year with European Parliament members to submit the resolution.

The
International Whaling Commissions Scientific Committee conducted a
workshop on underwater sonars and whale strandings this summer,
concluding that there is compelling evidence that military sonar use
is causing some mass strandings of whales. Such strandings have been
documented in the Bahamas, the Canary Islands, and the Virgin Islands.

IMMP has partnered with leading French animal protection society One Voice and the Japanese environmental organization Elsa Nature Conservancy in an effort to stop the annual massacre of dolphins in Japan.
Approximately 20,000 dolphins and other small whales are slaughtered
each year in Japan.

Some are killed at sea with handheld
harpoons; others are killed in a drive fishery, in which fishermen
drive pods of dolphins into a small cove and kill them with butcher
knives and sharp hooks.

The fishermen have driven a large pod of bottlenose dolphins into the killing cove. They are cutting off the dolphins' escape with two nets placed 50 feet apart. Photo by Helene O'Barry

Its
a small minority of fishermen in remote fishing villages that carry out
the hunts. The fishermen take extreme measures to prevent anyone from
witnessing and filming their activities. As a result, the vast majority
of the Japanese population is unaware that the drive fishery exists. It
is vital, therefore, to document the dolphin massacres and help the
Japanese people gain access to the information that has been
systematically withheld from them. Teams of videographers have just
spent several weeks in two remote fishing villages where the hunts are
carried out.

The town of Futo became the center of controversy
in 1999 when fishermen there captured some 70 bottlenose dolphins. The
massacre caused an international uproar and due to the resulting media
attention, no dolphins were killed there between 1999 and 2004.
Unfortunately, however, fishermen in Futo announced that they would
resume the dolphin hunt this year. The chairman of Ito Fishing
Cooperative Futo Branch told members of One Voice that several Japanese
dolphinaria had placed an order for young bottlenose dolphins. He
further stated that a few of the dolphins would be butchered for human
consumption and at least one killed for research purposes.

The
fishermen are paranoid about being photographed while killing dolphins
and in Futo, where the drive fishery season starts September 1, they
didnt carry out a single hunt for the two weeks during which they were
monitored. But on November 11, they drove about one hundred bottlenose
dolphins into the harbor, where representatives from six Japanese
dolphinariums chose the best-looking ones. Coalition member Sakae Hemmi
of Elsa Nature Conservancy was able to document the capture. She
reported that members of the captive dolphin industry yanked 19
dolphins out of the water and selected 14 that fulfilled the ideal
criteria for captive dolphin swim programs and dolphin shows. One of
the dolphins died from shock and was processed into meat for human
consumption along with three of its pod members. Many dolphins were
caught in the capture nets and in their struggles to disentangle
themselves suffered severe injuries.

The Fishing Cooperative
later reported that 80 dolphins were released, but an eyewitness
questions this claim. Many pressing questions remain unanswered: How
many of the dolphins had been injured so seriously that they had no
chance of survival? And how many were in such a state of shock that
they couldnt find their way back to the open sea?

Live dolphins
sold to aquaria bring a much higher profit than do dead dolphins
processed into meat. By ordering dolphins from Futo, the dolphinariums
enticed the fishermen to resume a practice they had not carried out
since 1999. The high value of dolphins for public display has added a
new, high value driver to a despicable industry that would otherwise
discontinue, says One Voices Ric OBarry.

This season,
fishermen in Taiji have been given a permit to kill approximately 2,400
cetaceans of various species. On two occasions, representatives from
local dolphinariums Dolphin Base, World Dolphin Resort, and Taiji Whale
Museum were witnessed encouraging the dolphin hunt. Aided by the
fishermen, dolphin handlers forced dolphins into shallow water and
selected the ones they estimated to be of the desired show quality.
The old, the blemished, and those still dependent on their mothers
milk were butchered. Dolphin handlers hauled the selected dolphins away
to steel cages in Taiji harbor. But the dolphins were still in shock
and didnt eat. One week after capture, they had to be force-fed.

Taiji
City Hall has implemented laws banning photographers from climbing the
mountain from which one can see the killing cove. Fishermen have tied
barbed wire around trees used to climb to photograph the scene, and
they have erected an enormous canvas wall at the top of the mountain to
block the scene. They have even erected a large tarp across the entire
cove, making it impossible to film the massacres from the air. A
fisherman from the fishing village of Katsuura said that it costs the
fishermen a lot of time and money to hide from cameras. You are making
their work extremely difficult, he said, adding that media presence in
Taiji has created a debate in nearby villages and that not everyone
here supports the dolphin hunt.

The strategy is working. The
slaughter of dolphins in Japan will continue for only as long as the
fishermen are successful at keeping it a secret. Our team will keep
returning to these remote fishing villages to document and expose the
dolphin massacres. Visit our Web site for more information: www.savetaijidolphins.org. Helene OBarry, One Voice